Come on Over The Hairy Bikers' Comfort Food

We've travelled the world and eaten everywhere from roadside bars

to restaurants with Michelin stars.

But there really is nothing like a bit of home cooking.

Coming into a warm kitchen,

filled with the aroma of a tasty meal bubbling away.

It's one of life's great pleasures.

Lovingly prepared dishes with flavours that pack a punch.

It's the perfect way to put smiles on the faces

of your nearest and dearest.

We also uncover why some recipes are so special that they're handed down

through generations of the same family...

It's fantastic, Mum.

-Thank you.

-Enjoy.

..drop in on some of the UK's homeliest tearooms and cafes...

..and find out what chefs like to cook on their days off.

Oh!

This is much easier and much quicker.

There's nothing quite as comforting as simple home cooking.

Today, we've got the perfect dishes to share with the people we love.

Indulgent treats to feed a crowd...

..when family and friends come on over.

RHYTHMIC TAPPING ON POTS AND PANS

Come on over, we're having a party!

You know what it's like,

we spend all these days in splendid isolation,

our little paradise, cooking food for ourselves!

We want you to come on over.

And today we're going to show you

some of our favourite dishes to share with our chums.

We're doing a cheesecake, aren't we, David?

Yeah. It's not just any cheesecake.

-No!

-It's light, it's airy, it's a symphony of almonds.

I'm going to make a noise.

I am going to butter the springform cake tin, David.

Oh, I'll pass you the butter.

Thank you. So, springform cake tin.

What we're going to do, we're going to bash the living daylights

out of about seven amaretti biscuits.

-Beautiful.

-And it really is a light crumb

around the sides and the bottom.

I've got ricotta cheese here.

If it's a bit wet, strain it off

through a strainer or a muslin cloth.

And into that, and we'll whip in some caster sugar.

Ricotta's quite a sweet, soft cheese, and it's great in desserts.

I love it with pine nuts and spinach.

Oh, lush!

It's versatile, isn't it?

-It is. Very.

-And I said, it's the classic cheese for a cheesecake.

Now what I do is, I break in six eggs one by one.

When it's baked, this is going to give us

the substance in our cheesecake.

Egg ninja.

Take your amaretti biscuits,

about seven in total.

It's worth taking the time for this,

because they've got to be as fine as you can get them, really.

All that egg's loosened it up a treat.

-Has it?

-Yeah.

-Lovely.

I mean, baked cheesecake,

it's kind of like an American-style cheesecake.

They call it the New York cheesecake,

and to me, it's a real true cheesecake.

I mean, you get the ones you put in the fridge,

but that's just like chilled pudding, really.

But it's also a celebration of the almond.

It's quite grown-up and refined.

-And it's rich.

-Aye.

Let's enhance the richness with some double cream.

Now the zest of a lemon.

And this is the nice thing, you see.

You cannot have all that cheese and cream and stuff

without a little hit of lemony acidity. It's lovely.

Now, the biscuit crumb that we're going to put around the cheesecake

is quite thin.

So pour three quarters of it in, and we're going to save a little bit

to decorate the top of the cheesecake

once it's finished. And all you do is shuffle it around like that,

and around the side until you get a good coating.

I want about four spoons of almond based liqueur.

And just fold that in.

Look at that!

It's beautiful, isn't it?

We had a council house that was pebbledashed like that.

So did I! It's funny that, aye!

I was thinking about that as I was doing it!

Right, now pour this in the middle.

Gently, because you don't want to disturb the crumbage.

Oh, look at that.

And just let the mixture find its way up the side on its own.

Don't rush it.

Don't push it. Those crumbs will be the crowning glory.

They will be the crumbs on the cake.

Lovely. Now the secret for cooking this cheesecake

so it sets and doesn't crack is,

we put this into a preheated oven.

160 degrees for a fan oven for ten minutes.

Then after ten minutes,

we knock them down to 140 degrees Celsius for a further hour.

Then after that hour,

we turn the oven off and we just

wedge the door open with a wooden spoon,

just so it cools down slowly.

And leave it in the oven to cool for three hours.

I know, but you've got to plan ahead with people coming.

-You have.

-But if you cool this down too quickly, the top will crack.

We want it perfect. But you could do this

the day before your party, couldn't you?

Oh, yeah, easy, easy.

That's it, Kingy. A total cooking and cooling time

of four hours, ten minutes.

Spoon out.

Oh, yes. Now, that's it.

That's what we want. It's cool and it hasn't cracked.

And see how it's shrunk back.

It's really annoying when things go wrong at this stage.

But it hasn't.

Now let's finish it off with some lemon zest and crumbs.

That couldn't be any better, Si.

I think you're right, mate.

I don't think it could. It's lovely, isn't it?

Oh, it's a good cutter.

It's a baked cheesecake.

Blobs of creme fraiche.

That just looks so beautiful, doesn't it?

Lovely texture, Dave.

It's such a beautiful, grown-up taste.

It's not too sweet.

Kingy, there's one fundamental problem with this cheesecake.

-What?

-If people come on over, have this,

they're not going to want to go home!

Britain has an army of creative chefs who, day after day,

send out sensational dishes to customers in their restaurants.

They work long hours, toiling over their stoves.

But what's their idea of comfort food?

Aktar Islam from Lasan in Birmingham

shares his favourite home-cooked dish.

So, I started cooking at a very early age.

I was a bit of a mummy's boy,

so, anything to spend time with my mother.

So, a lot of it was around the kitchen,

and I was helping preparing vegetables.

And as I grew older,

she gave me more and more responsibilities,

and that's where it all started.

The thing that fascinates me most

about being in the kitchen environment

is, it's the artistry of it.

I'm of Bengali heritage, so the food that we had at home,

fruit from West Bengal and Bangladesh,

it's what I was brought up with.

But then my mother had friends from all over South Asia,

so we had all these influences coming into our kitchen at home,

so, for me, South Asian cuisine, you know, it's my roots,

it's where it all started, I guess.

And that's where my inspiration

for a lot of what I do today still comes from.

Home time for me is time with my friends, time with my family,

and a lot of it involves entertaining and socialising.

If you have a look at my cupboards...

So, cooking at home, for me, it's more about relaxing

and enjoying and doing things in a way

where you can concentrate on your guests,

as opposed to the plate of food that you're putting together.

So for me, one pot cooking's a good thing.

I love that because there's less washing-up to do.

And then stuff that I can get together

before everyone arrives and I can just put out onto the table,

and then enjoy my guests' company.

The lads are coming around. They're going to be hungry,

and what I'm going to do for them

is this lovely, hearty, fragrant biryani.

So I've got some lovely shanks of lamb,

which we cook with some aromatic spices

and bake together with some rice.

It's a real simple dish.

So, first...

..turmeric.

Some earthy cumin.

I've got some lovely coriander.

To finish off, we've got some chilli.

So what we've used here is a Kashmiri chilli.

It's lovely and vibrant in colour, but not too hot.

These are some of my favourite parts about cooking with spices,

because you can really smell and see

how the flavour is starting to develop.

You can see how it's starting

to react with all the other ingredients.

It's amazing, actually, I love it.

I think the thing I love about home cooking the most

is I actually find it quite

therapeutic, because, you know,

right now, it's just me and this pot,

and my mind is free to think and wander.

It's downtime, really, cooking at home.

Then pour over a load of water

and let it simmer for an hour or so

until the meat's nice and tender.

When it's nice and tender, we're going to mix some yoghurt,

some tomato, some fresh herbs of coriander and mint.

I'm going to take a really good, generous amount of this.

I'm going to bind that in with that,

and then put our basmati rice in there.

And then we're just going to bring it up to the boil,

we're going to seal it with some dough...

..whack it in the oven and forget about it until everyone's here.

-Hello!

-Hey, man!

For me, cooking at home is just as satisfying

as cooking at the restaurant,

but obviously at home the pressure's not on.

Oh, look at that!

That looks amazing!

You're not going to get a bad review from your mates, so, you know...

but it's still nice to be able to put a plate of food

in front of everyone that, you know, people equally enjoy.

It's good.

Oh, that is amazing.

Everyone has a gift,

and everyone has a gift to give to others, and, you know, for me,

mine is food. I've got a love of food,

and it's something that I can share

with all my friends and my loved ones.

-ALL:

-Cheers!

You can't come on over, in our view, without a terrine.

Nah, it's the best kind of lazy person's

let's-do-a-starter- for-a-dozen-people

pork and chicken terrine.

It's a delight to bring to the table and it's a delight to eat, too.

And, with that, a fig and port compote.

It's brilliant with a terrine.

Now, a terrine needs a little bit of fat,

so that's why we using pork belly, but I've taken the rind off,

because that is a little bit too much.

It's a good-looking terrine, this,

because it's going to have the bacon plaited on the top,

and you cut through it, and what I'm doing is I've got chicken breast,

and cutting it into long slices,

so you'll get sticks of chicken running through the terrine,

and it really is a stunner.

So most of this actually goes into the food processor.

A top tip when you're making terrines,

your blade and your cutter -

stick it in the freezer for about half an hour

before you actually come to use it, because, if you do that,

then it doesn't heat the meat up and spoil it.

The chicken needs to be marinated for about an hour.

So it's some wine, white wine...

..just some thyme leaves, we just want the leaves.

Now, what we've done is rehydrated some apricots.

Now everything basically just goes into the food processor here.

It's really simple.

In with your pistachios.

In with a teaspoon of ground ginger.

Zest of a lemon.

Pepper.

And some salt.

Thyme.

And, lastly, for my marinade, a splash of olive oil.

The zest of a lemon.

And we cover this chicken,

and then we leave that to steep for about an hour or so.

Shall I start prepping the tin up, Kingy?

Why don't you? I love this bit, it's great.

Because you want it to look a bit fancy, don't you?

Oh, aye. We've got this proper terrine dish,

but for years at home we just used an old loaf tin

and wrapped it up in tinfoil.

But first off, I need to stretch me bacon.

And just over the back of a knife, just pull out your rashers.

Right, I'm just going to give that a little pulse...

..and then...

..we add pork shoulder.

I think the two types of pork,

-in any kind of pork terrine, is essential, don't you?

-It is, it is.

We've got the pork belly, which is fatty, and then pork shoulder,

it's a springy meat, so you have that textural difference.

And the texture you want

is a fine mince,

not by any stretch of the imagination

do you need it to be a paste.

Because we've got a lot of subtle flavours going on,

I wouldn't go for smoked bacon with this, or pancetta,

just good, old-fashioned, fatty, streaky bacon is the one you want.

Now, I'm going to start plaiting me bacon,

and you'll see it's worth all this faff,

because when the terrine comes out, you're going to think,

"That's incredible!"

So we'll start like that, like so, so you've got the cross there.

Make sure it's down the bottom.

Then just keep plaiting.

I love doing stuff like this, because it's not difficult,

but, when your guests come, by crikey it's impressive,

and they will swear blind that you bought it.

And it's just a lovely thing to do.

I think a terrine of this size, as well,

you're going to get 12 good slices.

-You are, yeah.

-So, basically, out of two chicken breasts

and a minimal quantity of pork, you know,

you've got a starter for 12 people.

Oh, but for lunch, I love this, with some pickled onions, crusty bread,

you know, you just can't beat it.

So you need half the pork.

Make sure you press it down, and it's even in the bottom.

So you just lay the chicken down, strip by strip.

-Look at that.

-Perfect.

-Hee-hee-hee!

-I love food like this!

Oh man, that's a good job.

There you go.

Now, let's just put a couple of strips down the middle,

like so, and now these edge bits...

See what I'm doing?

Just fold those over, so it's all nicely tucked in.

Now don't forget this is the bottom of the terrine,

it's not the presentation side.

-Oh, no.

-What you do with the terrine is,

you turn it over, and flip it out.

Now, if you're doing this, like your mother used to do, in a loaf tin,

you put tinfoil on the top, a couple of layers.

I've got my posh terrine tin, so I pop the lid on,

and we cook this in a bain-marie, which is basically a roasting tin,

just off the boil water out the kettle,

about two centimetres up the side of the tin.

And we place that to cook gently in a preheated oven at 150 Celsius,

for about an hour and a half.

Have a look now and again,

just to see that your roasting tin isn't going dry.

Terrine's in the oven, it's doing its thing,

so we thought we'd make the compote that we mentioned before, you see?

So, we've got half a kilo of dried figs.

Now we've put these in a massive glass of red wine,

and they've been soaking for about half an hour.

So we're going to pop those in a pan

and we're going to cook them until they're mushy.

Now, to spice up life, put two cloves in.

A teaspoon of white wine vinegar.

Half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper.

Just cook that until the figs go soft.

Which will take about 20 minutes.

Ooh, they've plumped up a treat.

They certainly do, David.

Well, it wouldn't be a fig and port compote without...

-BOTH:

-..the port!

A good, big glass of port.

What you want to do, bring it up to temperature,

let it simmer for a couple of minutes, job's a good 'un.

I'll turn that off,

I'll take half, put it in here and blitz it.

So you've got some whole figs,

and you've got some, like...like, jammy bits.

I'm just going to put a little bit of juice in here, Dave.

And just put a splash of olive oil in.

Pop this back in here.

Look at that. Freshen that up with some orange zest.

Oh, that's perfect, Kingy.

-Absolutely, isn't it just?

-Yep.

Now obviously you need to serve this cold.

It's unctuous, bumptious.

-Good.

-I think that terrine should be just about to get out

and ready to cool.

Ooh!

-There we are.

-Hot terrine.

I've got a funny feeling there'll be stuff goes over the top.

Wow.

-No, look at that.

-Oh, there's a lot of liquid in there.

Yep, it's kind of a bit swollen up.

But we want to press it, so that it's a proper, firm terrine.

Now, in the old days,

my mum would use the weights from a weighing scales on the top.

Or cans of beans.

We, however, have got a brick.

But it's the most perfect shape for the terrine.

There you go.

Now that has to go absolutely cold before we take it out.

It's going to take, like, seven, eight hours?

-Eight hours, yeah.

-Or preferably overnight.

-It should be all right for tonight.

-Yeah, should be, mate.

Well, this terrine has been here for about seven hours,

so it's cooled down nicely, the brick's done it's job.

-Certainly has.

-Shall we try and

-turn it out and garnish it?

-I think we should.

Oh, look at that.

Ho-ho!

Look at that! She's lovely.

Wow, that's perfect.

-And there's our compote.

-Wow.

Some thyme on the top.

Give them a clue about what's to come.

Lovely. Now the end piece

is going to be sacrificial, i.e, cooks' perks.

Oh, yes!

Lovely. And I think we should try it.

-Oh!

-SI CHUCKLES

Well, that's worth doing, it's really good.

I tell you what, those textures work really well.

Lovely flavour, lovely apricot through it, as well.

Well, you know what?

Come on over, cos it's worth it.

DOG WHINES

Nothing beats home-made comfort food,

but it's always nice to have someone else cook for you.

Thankfully, all over the country,

there are tasty places that make us feel right at home,

and keep enticing us back.

My name's Louise,

and I'm the owner of Word Of Mouth Cafe

here in the market town of Evesham.

-Are you being served?

-No, can I have a tea and a coffee, please?

When we came here, we didn't know anyone

and we wanted to make a cafe that felt part of the community

so we would get to know people, as well.

So it felt so important for us as a family

to make this an extension of our family.

-Bye!

-Bye, thank you!

-Bye!

We like to make food for people

that have got food intolerances, food allergies.

All our soups and stews are either vegetarian or vegan, gluten-free.

One thing we're really proud of is our falafels.

They are relatively simple to make,

the hardest thing is to remember

to soak your chickpeas the night before.

We serve them with a traditional home-made hummus, some tahini,

sweet chilli sauce, nice warm pitta bread and a delicious mixed salad.

That's the most wonderful lunch you could have.

We like to have somewhere where, if you've got an allergy,

you can bring your friends, your family,

and there's going to be something for all of you,

and you can all enjoy a lovely afternoon out.

We've got loads of books everywhere.

We sponsor a boy in Uganda, and we have done for the last six years.

Every time somebody buys a book for £1.50, it goes in a pot,

and we pay his school fees.

Customers bring in books, bags and boxes of books, to help,

and we are so proud of what we're doing.

Not us personally, but us as a cafe...

..are helping transform a little boy's life.

When we opened, I hoped that I would

feel the way I feel now about this place,

and I do, of what we've managed to make,

and I hope that our customers do love us as much as we love them.

When I was setting up my business,

I came over here looking for a sandwich,

and I've been coming back ever since.

You can't help it, it's just really good in here.

I suppose because I've been coming so long,

now I feel I've got friends here.

It's something a bit different and a bit special,

and we're very lucky to have it.

If Evesham did not have something like Word Of Mouth

serving the community, I think it'd be a far, far worse place to be.

We'd just hate to lose this place.

It's definitely a one-off.

Why don't you come on over and have a French dip with us?

-Why don't you?

-It's not wrong.

It's a beautiful, hot sirloin beef sandwich.

You make the gravy on the side in a pot,

so as you eat your French bread sandwich, you dip it in gravy,

and that's called a French dip.

The most wonderful sirloin, wonderful gravy, what's not to love?

I'd come round to my house for that.

Well, you have come round to my house for that.

-We've been it for doing yonks!

-Yours was a bit different, wasn't it?

It was, it was. What we do is,

we take a whole sirloin, and we do this rub,

and basically put this rub on it,

you sear it off first with some beef dripping here,

in a hot pan, fat side down first.

But the rub is essentially the same as all those years ago.

I've got pepper, English mustard, sea salt...

..and thyme.

The reason that we're searing this off is just to keep

all the juices and loveliness in,

and also you get a lovely colour on your sirloin.

Another thing is, and we've said it time and time again,

before you embark on any cooking with beef,

always start with the meat at room temperature,

it really does make a difference.

Right, I think we're there with the searing, I want to turn that off.

Now, obviously, it's going to be hot, so...

..just sprinkle first on top...

..and then what you start to do is just rub it in like that.

And what this does, it forms a really, really lovely crust,

and that crust is so flipping tasty.

-It's great.

-So what I've done is I've got shallots,

put them like this,

so this is going to keep the meat just off the bottom of the dish,

but also the onion is going to help the resting juices.

It's all about the gravy, this dish.

First, I'm going to deglaze the pan.

It's what both our mums used to do,

was put some water or stock in the bottom of the roasting dish.

It kind of just helped the gravy along a little bit.

Well, it also prevents the cooking juices,

for when they hit the hot roasting pan, from burning.

Oh, look at that.

Beautiful.

Sits on the top of Dave's trivet, like that, with the onions.

The cooking time depends on how you like your beef.

We're going for a rare to medium rare,

so for a piece of beef like that,

reckon to cook this in a hot oven, 220 degrees Celsius,

for about 25 to 30 minutes,

then it's going to rest for about 20 minutes, too.

Right, we'll see you in half an hour, my friend.

Which gives us time to make the gravy. The gravy!

And this is a really thick, unctuous mushroom gravy.

We start the gravy with a finely chopped shallot.

Some sliced button mushrooms and butter.

I think there is a great tradition

of dipping your bread in, isn't there?

We've done it for years, I mean, look, well, you can remember, like,

-the Christmas dinners we used to have.

-Oh, gosh.

-Christmas morning,

we'd get up, me mam had cooked the turkey overnight,

don't ask me how she did it.

And Stella King's turkey

was the moistest, most succulent turkey I've ever had.

All the cooking juices used to be there. What did Mam used to do?

She used to make some home-made bread,

it'd be on the table in the morning, you'd come past, rip a big bit off,

open the oven, lift the tinfoil,

dunk it in to the cooking juices from the turkey, bit of salt on it,

job's a good 'un. Off you went.

I can still remember one Christmas Day morning, I'm sitting there,

nursing a hangover and a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden,

kitchen door flew open,

boxer shorts flew past, yelling, "Turkey dippers!"

And he was in the oven,

and he come out covered in grease and turkey dripping,

and Stella says, "He's been doing that since he was three".

Right, we're going to start with onions.

Yeah. And now we bung in the mushrooms.

And we cook that until the onions take on a little bit of colour.

Put some garlic in.

And some thyme.

Now, we want a big spoon of flour,

because we want the gravy quite thick

because it's got to cling to your French stick.

And if you don't push a load of heat through it, it tastes floury.

Now, we are going to bring together with red wine.

That'll do. And just cook that until the red wine has reduced by half.

Now, we're still going to use the stock that comes out of our sirloin,

but we are going to give it a bit of a help,

so this is good beef stock.

But this is the secret weapon.

Demi-glace.

It's a twice-reduced stock

that's long been the secrets of restaurants.

You can make your own. It's a stock that's boiled away

until it's half its volume.

Now, we want to cook that until this has reduced by about a third.

Do you reckon the beef is done, Kingy?

I reckon it is.

Just as important as the cooking time is the resting time,

so this is going to rest for 25 minutes.

And whilst the beef's resting, it's still actually cooking.

And it will go up another ten degrees on the inside.

Let me cover it.

Now, this is the thing, mate, isn't it?

This is what we're after.

A little slurp, do you reckon?

Yeah.

Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee!

Right, now, let's just bring that up to temperature a bit.

And that just goes in there.

I think that's another ten minutes, give the beef another ten.

Then we're laughing.

Let's look at this meat.

Oh, yeah.

I'll just take that off.

That's it.

Oh, it's perfect.

It's perfect.

Now, that's thick and lustrous.

What we're going to do now is chop in some tarragon.

Well, that's a plate of meat.

And that...

..is a French dip.

Just a smear down there.

Now...

For a bit of lubrication.

You dip it in mushroom gravy...

Oh, vive la France!

Everyone has their favourite family dishes,

delicious meals that remind us of home.

But we are a creative bunch, too,

rustling up scrumptious new recipes to wow our loved ones.

These are our inheritance dishes.

And they'll be feeding our families for generations to come.

My name is Lysandros,

I'm a second-generation Greek Cypriot, born in Cardiff,

and growing up we had Greek Cypriot values instilled in us

and along with that comes the food aspect.

That's a really big part of our lives, I suppose.

And there's constantly some sort of cooking going on,

when you go to visit your relatives or even if we are cooking at home,

usually, the kind of question that comes after,

"Hello, how are you doing?"

is, "Are you hungry, do you want something to eat?

And we are kind of encouraged to get involved, as well.

Lysandros? Do you want to come and help me wrap some of these, please?

-Hello.

-Hi, thank you.

My favourite.

There's the plate.

Family get-togethers are very important.

They happen quite often in our house.

Everyone kind of has their own task.

For example, Mum might be in the kitchen prepping,

Dad will be out of the barbecue, covered in charcoal.

You know, flames everywhere.

And it's kind of like this organised chaos.

My father has a passion for barbecuing.

It has been there ever since I can remember, really,

and that's really influenced me a lot.

All throughout growing up, we've had these barbecues.

He toys with different methods.

He gets his friends to weld him

different types of barbecues

until he gets the pinnacle of barbecues.

We're kind of at that stage now

where we've seen all these methods develop

and different techniques of cooking the meat

to keep it tender and succulent.

Souvlaki traditionally is small pieces of meat,

cooked over a charcoal and served in a pitta bread.

That does look amazing.

In Cyprus, if you were to have a pork souvlaki,

they don't marinate the meat, they just salt it.

They place it in the pitta with lemon juice,

chopped parsley and onions.

That's kind of what you get.

We've taken that and we've put our own marinade on the meat,

so we'll marinade the pork in wine,

crushed coriander seeds

and we've got a bit of a take on the salad, as well.

There you go. Enjoy it.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, my God!

We make the home-made sauces, Tzatziki and hummus,

which they don't regularly use in Cyprus.

We also add charcoaled halloumi cheese to the pitta,

which is not a common thing in Cyprus.

You want it the Cypriot way or do you want it the new way?

Uh, the Cypriot way with a twist.

I've got to say that my parents are impressed with what I'm doing.

It takes a lot to please my dad over the charcoal

but I seem to have got his seal of approval.

Cheers, everyone.

-ALL:

-Cheers!

Nice food.

My kids are going to be barbecuing from the time they can walk.

That's a given. If they haven't got their grandfather on it,

I will be on it. Definitely,

I'll be passing the tips and tricks down,

and no doubt I'll be looking over their shoulders,

surveying their kind of cooking,

seeing if it's up to scratch, just like I had.

Come on over, we've got food to share.

Yeah. Tear and share.

A tear and share chorizo, cheese and chive bread.

-You're going to love it.

-But we've got to have something

to dip it into, haven't we, for our chums?

It would be wrong not to, Dave.

So, with your tear and share bread,

you will have a whacking big bowl of wild mushroom soup.

So, to kick it off with, Dave is going to make the dough,

I'm going to make what goes through the dough, which is,

as Dave was saying before, chorizo, so we're going to do that.

I'm going to chop it, we've got some chives

and I want to grate some lovely, lovely mature cheese.

So, I'll crack on with that.

For the bread, I've got my flour and a teaspoon of salt.

Some dried yeast.

About a sachet. To feed the yeast, put in some honey...

..and two big spoons of olive oil.

And we're going to work together, into a dough,

with some warm water and make bread.

I used to make a lot of flavoured breads.

I went through a phase of it.

We could put your bits in now, couldn't we,

-and knead them into the dough, do you think?

-Yeah, absolutely, man.

Just keep going until you've worked all your chives and sausage

and cheese into the bread. I mean, don't worry.

The bread will rise with all this stuff in it.

You know the dough has taken on a red hue

from the chorizo, haven't they?

And as the bread cooks,

the fat from the chorizo is going to go into the bread

-and you will get a nice dribble on.

-Oh, yeah.

A bit of oil on the bowl...

So it comes out in one piece.

And you pop this out of the draught...

..for an hour or so, until it's doubled in size.

-Nice cuppa.

-Oh, lovely.

Well, look at that.

Now, we are going to knock that back,

because we're going to hope for a second rising.

You'll get lighter bread.

While Dave is doing that, I'm just chopping some shallots

to start the base of the soup.

Now, I'm going to make about eight rolls.

The slower that you prove bread, the better the bread,

because obviously the bread's got more time to develop its flavour.

Now, buns.

If you press and roll, you can really knock them back.

And they'll go hard - and, look, you are left with buns.

Butter, in the pan, and we are going to saute off the shallots.

So, we'll put one in the middle.

Now, they will grow and expand and join as one.

The nice thing about tear and share bread is it's not all crust.

As you tear your pebble off, you get nice soft bits, don't you?

-You do.

-Leave them to prove for about another half an hour.

-That will do fine.

-As soon as the butter starts to foam,

that's a good indicator that it's to temperature

and you can start to put the ingredients in to cook.

I've got button mushrooms and chestnut mushrooms.

I've got porcini, I've got girolles, and I've got portobellini.

The secret, I think, to mushroom soup is you need a lot of mushrooms.

The porcini can go in.

The porcini's almost like the stock cube of the mushroom world.

It just intensifies the flavour.

So, I've just put the garlic in there,

some salt, a good twist of pepper.

And some lovely fresh...

..thyme.

The lid on.

Five minutes.

Bit of a moulder, then we'll start to add our stock.

Oh, they've dropped. Haven't they?

Just look at that.

But my bread rolls have certainly not.

I hope. Oh, yes!

It's like a daisy wheel of flavour.

What I need to do now is a nice eggy wash

and grate more cheese on the top.

I'm going to add our stock.

Chicken.

A little masala, just for a note of sweetness.

And just to bring all those lovely savoury flavours out,

a little bit of lemon juice.

We'll bring that to the boil for Dave to blend it.

Beautiful.

So, these girolles,

I'm just going to saute these off with a little butter, some parsley,

a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper

and we are just going to make them look really, really nice

on the top of that beautiful soup.

Right, now we need to pop these into a preheated oven,

200 Celsius with a fan oven, for about 20-25 minutes,

until golden, huge and bubbling with joy and flavour.

Ta-da!

While Dave's blending it, we are going to add the cream now.

Throw a little bit of parsley in with the girolles.

DAVE LAUGHS

It's like a sunflower of dough.

Oh, wow!

You know, Si,

I think that's probably

the most perfect bowl of mushroom soup I've ever seen,

and with that bread, it's madly good, isn't it?

-It works.

-And all you do is just tear...

..and share. It's best to let it cool down a bit first, though.

Yes, cos it's really hot!

But look at that. That's good bread.

-It's beautiful.

-Worth the effort, isn't it?

-Definitely.

-So, next time you're hungry, come on over.

May as well, aye.